


Coming Home

by DarkBlueSocks



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11885907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkBlueSocks/pseuds/DarkBlueSocks
Summary: A young woman falls in love with a young man. But the man is much too young, and so the woman has to leave. But the man will find her again.





	Coming Home

A single slice of cake was slid under your nose. Glancing up from your quiet brooding, you could see that Sebastian was smiling at you. “Happy Birthday.” The butler said politely, but not exactly kindly.

You glanced at the cake. It was clearly your favourite, a coincidence that he had somehow known. That or Ciel had told him. You were sure something as simple as your favourite dessert would have come up in one of your innumerable conversations. Ciel. You spoke to him far too much. It was clear on this day more than ever, and thinking about that put you in no mood to eat cake. You slid it further away.

              “Sebastian…” you glanced at the man who had stayed behind as though he knew you had something to say before you did. “Today I turned twenty.”

               “Indeed.”

Sebastian knew what you were leading to, but he allowed you to get there without his comment.

               “Ciel is…thirteen.” Underaged. Little more than a child, barely in his teenaged years. Your mother had worked for the Phantomhives, and when Ciel returned you had automatically become one of the servants for the child. But the more time you spent with the brooding, handsome boy the less like a child he had seemed. Every day you got closer to the young earl… until you realized that you had become too close.

It would have been bad enough for a maid to be in love with her master… but a seven year age gap?

               “I don’t think I can stay here anymore.”

You didn’t say why, and Sebastian did not press you for the reason. It was obvious after what you had just said. Not to mention that it had been quite clear to the demon you were enamoured with his master long before you were aware of it yourself.

               “If that’s what you want…”

His statement trailed off. It was obviously a lie anyway, both of you knew leaving was the opposite of what you wanted. But staying with an underaged boy that you were becoming more and more in love with every day… that wasn’t something that you could do either.

And so you left the Phantomhive manor on your twentieth birthday, without a word to your young master or any of the other servants you’d grown to care for during your time there. Sebastian had said it would be easier that way, and maybe it had been.

 

Life moved slowly without Ciel in it. But even so, it still moved. Hours slowly dredged into days. Days eventually became weeks, then months. The first year became the second, the third, and so on and so forth.

You refused to mope about your decision to leave, or your non-existent romance with the much younger earl. It had been your decision after all. Since leaving the earl you had scrounged up your savings and purchased a small tea salon that quickly became a thriving, little business in the heart of London.

It was this tea salon that you were in now. Another long day had come to an end and there were plenty of cups to scrub and plates to scrape. Normally you had staff to take care of this sort of thing, but you’d sent them all home.

This day reminded you more than anything of the life you used to have, of your old job as a maid. Picking up empty tea cups and carrying them to the sink was like falling back into old habits. You couldn’t stop a small smile from blossoming across your face as you took to washing them. It was a nostalgic experience. From the soapy water emerged one cup that bared striking resemblance to one that had been your master’s favourite.

You paused in your cleaning. You couldn’t move, just stared at the tea cup bobbing up and down in the searing water. Something like a memory rocked at your consciousness, but you refused to sink into reminiscence. You couldn’t, not after working so hard.

Even so, it was like you could hear his soft, snarky voice even now. He’d probably make some rude comment about cleaning on your birthday –

               “This is how you spend your birthdays?”

Yeah, something like that. But Ciel’s voice had been higher if memory served you. You chose to ignore the voice, assuming it was your own thoughts attacking you. A moment later though, footsteps approached. They snapped you from your teacup-memory-daze, “We’ve closed for today.” You called.

The footsteps stopped. Stopped. They did not leave. Some people just didn’t think the rules applied to them.

You turned to remind the person, whoever they may be, that they could not wander through a closed establishment. But what you saw made you unable to. Standing there was a man. A man, by no means a boy. Ciel Phantomhive had aged since you last saw him. He stood before you now, a tall, lean specimen of perfection drenched in the same aura of maturity and mystery that he had always possessed.

               “Hello again.”

His voice was deeper too. The same distant quality he had as a child, but richer and deeper in pitch.

You wanted to marry that voice.

But what could you say to his nonchalant greeting? What could you say even to his presence here?

               “h – hi…”

Of all the things you could have said, that was by far the lamest.

Ciel smirked. He wanted to laugh at the effect he had on you, that he still had on you, but he didn’t. Laughing was far too positive and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for positivity.

               “So this is where you’ve been hiding all this time.” He examined the salon with a critical sapphire eye. You knew his taste was a touch above anything you could have succeeded on your own, but you couldn’t help but feel small the way he looked down on it all. “Where you ran off to once you left me.” He added, as though you could have forgotten.

A little peeved at the way he was behaving, you tossed your head back and let out a sound of annoyance that you didn’t really feel. “I had to leave you’re nothing more than a child.”

Ciel tapped his cane against the floor as though he intended to crack it. Anger seemed to fall off him as the unimpressed stare he gave the shop fixed itself on your form. “I am twenty.” He muttered darkly. His lone sapphire eye glared at you. “Don’t act like you were ever mature, you were the one who ran away like a spoilt child.”

The anger hid sadness, and abandonment. But you knew Ciel. You weren’t sure if you were allowed to think that since you hadn’t seen him at all for the past seven years, but when you knew Ciel you could always sense his underlying emotions. Hearing them now, the bitterness underlying his angry words, made your heart break more than even leaving him had.

               “Ciel…” he looked away. “I am…sorry.” Sorry. The word wasn’t right for what you felt. It didn’t convey all the emotions that had accumulated after seven years had passed. You wanted to tell him that you’d never forgotten him, that every day had been close to unbearable without him in it – but those were a lover’s words, and they didn’t fit into the master-servant dynamic that was all you had ever had.

               “And how you tried to replace me…” he chuckled, but it was a dark sound. You responded with a look of confusion and he was quick to answer your question with a question. “Why do you think every relationship of yours has failed?”

In a second you were glowing ruby red and any pity you had felt for Ciel dried up. Those relationships had been  _meaningless_  and you had known no one would replace Ciel. But the fact that he had  _known_ about them and  _stopped_ them sent you into a whirlwind mixture of embarrassment and rage.

               “You had no right.”

               “Oh I think I had every right.” Ciel sneered. “The woman I love just up and vanishes one day and precedes to try and  _replace_  me.”

He scoffed as though the concept of you attempting to find anyone even half as good as him was so laughable. But you could barely pay attention to the majority of his sentence, your heart fluttered at the word ‘love’ and seemed to stay in a mini trance up until the end of his rude remarks… you had been in something of a trance since you notice him in the shop actually.

Uncomfortable silence.

               “You...” he paused. The former surly attitude of his was erased and he looked more like the embarrassed child you had known. “You left this behind when you came here.” He held up a small box, decorated with a bright pink ribbon that was clearly not something you had left behind at the manor. Regardless of his lies, you took the box from his hands.

              “But this is…” an engagement ring. One you recognized from portraits of his mother. The mere sight of such a beautiful stone, in such a beautiful ring would have had you in fits. But add to that the fact that this  _was_  an engagement ring... you were pretty sure it was a heart attack that you were having.

               “You can wear it now.” Ciel stated plainly, a tinge of pink on his cheeks the only sign that he was feeling anything. “It was always meant for you. Come,” without looking at you Ciel grabbed your hand bashfully and begun to tug you out of the store. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
